If It Kills Me
by Lady China
Summary: Alex and Sabina meet on a ski resort while Alex is on a mission. O/s. Mentions of torture.


Sabina Pleasure was on a ski resort in Switzerland, when she caught a flash of blond hair. _It can't be…_

The days passed and she still hasn't seen that blond hair anywhere. _Just a trick in her mind_, she assured herself. _Just an illusion._

She shouldn't let her hopes up, anyway.

Sabina is twenty four now, and it had been seven years since she had last seen Alex Rider.

Even though it has been seven years, she still longed for him.

She still thought about him, every day. Still dreamt about him, almost every night.

She still felt a dull ache in her heart whenever she saw a blond haired man._  
_

_Hello, tell me you know  
Yeah, you figured me out  
Something gave it away  
And it would be such a beautiful moment  
To see the look on your face  
To know that I know that you know now_

Alex Rider had become a full fledged MI6 operator the day he became eighteen. For most boys, it would be a dream come true.

To Alex, it was merely a thing that he knew, had to be done.

When he was sixteen, he got expelled from Brooklands High. He should have felt hurt, angry, _anything_. But he didn't. He knew it would come to this.

Of course, as MI6 were his legal guardians, he had no choice.

To SAS, he went.

He lived there until he was eighteen, spending the time training. In the evenings he caught up with his school work. After all, even though he had a job from age fourteen, he still had to get good grades on his GCSE. If he did it for MI6 or for himself, Alex didn't know.

He liked feeling he might be able to get a respectable job once he quit MI6, or once MI6 fired him.

Oh, he knew they would fire him eventually, whether because one of his injuries made him unable to complete a mission or whether of old age.

If Alex even reached that far. He wasn't very optimistic.

Of course, he, too, went to missions. Every month they came for him. _It's_ _the best for everyone_, they said. _You're the only one who can do this._

Every time he came back to the SAS, bruised, the bags under his eyes black.

His eyes became harder. He slipped into an emotionless face, a mask.

It kept him from himself. And most importantly, everyone else.

The other soldiers learned in time not to approach him, nor talk about him. Somehow, they knew that wherever they'd talk about him, he will somehow know it.

And more, they were afraid of him.

At the moment, Alex was on a mission in Switzerland, in a ski resort, to be exact.

Apparently, the hotel manager had his own torture room in the basement.

Upon time, Alex would get to know that room quiet well.

He posed as a ski instructor. Fortunately, Alex's uncle Ian went on and made sure Alex perfected that particular sport.

Alex was waiting for his new group to come.

_And baby that's a case of my wishful thinking  
You know nothing  
Cause you and I  
Why, we go carrying on for hours, on and  
We get along much better  
Than you and your boyfriend_

Sabina went outside, feeling cold and slightly disheveled. She wanted to go back inside, crawl into her warm bed, and cry herself to sleep.

But she had a ski lesson to attend to.

Sabina felt slightly awkward on the skis at first, but she got used to it in the last few days.

She skied over to where her group was supposed to be meeting.

She was early. Only the instructor was there.

She continued skiing until she stood in front of him. She looked up at him, to see cold brown eyes staring down at her.

Her face was a mask of shock, pain and recognition.

She didn't know what to do. Even though she imagined their meeting thousands upon thousands of times.

_Well all I really wanna do is love you  
A kind much closer than friends use  
But I still can't say it after all we've been through  
And all I really want from you is to feel me  
As the feeling inside keeps building  
And I will find a way to you if it kills me  
If it kills me_

Alex felt the same things, even though his mask didn't falter, even for a second.

But that was still saying something. For the first time in months, or years, he _felt._


End file.
